Contributor’s links for June 3, 2019

Daily Links Post graphic

Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

111 Replies to “Contributor’s links for June 3, 2019”

  1. Turkey Arrests 20 ISIS Terrorists Nationwide (aawsat, Jun 3, 2019)
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1752186/turkey-arrests-20-isis-terrorists-nationwide

    “After staging a series of nationwide raids, Turkish security forces arrested 20 suspects tied to the ISIS group and who were suspected of plotting terror attacks.

    “A total of 18 people planning [terror] acts have been caught in various provinces with their arms,” Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said, speaking at an opening ceremony in Istanbul’s Tuzla district.

    Soylu added that two other alleged terror act plotters who were caught were believed to have been getting ready to carry out imminent attacks.

    “We also revealed where and how they had been planning [a terror act], and we also detected how close they had been,” Soylu said.

    Lately, Turkey has scaled up its security operations nationwide, raising the level of alertness for potential terror attacks.

    On Friday, for example, anti-terrorist forces detained four ISIS members in the southern state of Adana, after obtaining an arrest warrant. Backed by armored vehicles, security swat teams carried out a raid in the early on Friday, arresting the operatives whilst in possession of illegal arms and communication devices.

    Similarly, another 10 terror suspects were nabbed last week for sharing ties with terror group ISIS in the central Kayseri Province.

    Over the past few years, Turkey has been the target of multiple terror bombings and witnessed armed attacks hitting big cities like Ankara and Istanbul.

    ISIS has adopted the largest number of these assaults and has claimed hundreds of lives and injuries.

    Since early 2017, Turkish security forces have arrested more than 4,000 terrorists, most of who were foreigners. Hundreds were deported abroad.

    Turkish security forces successfully foiled 347 terrorist operations in 2018, which is nearly half of those thwarted in 2017.”

  2. Bahrain threatens citizens who follow banned Twitter accounts (memo, Jun 3, 2019)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190603-bahrain-threatens-citizens-who-follow-banned-twitter-accounts/

    “Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior has sent out a text message to all of the country’s citizens and residents threatening them with arrest and prosecution if they are caught following accounts blacklisted by the government, according to tweets posted by various human rights activists.

    The text message, which was sent to all Bahraini phones late last week, announced that social media users living in the country who “follow the accounts which incite sedition you will be prosecuted”.

    The message was also backed up by a tweet from the Ministry of Interior’s official account, stating on Thursday that “those who follow inciting accounts that promote sedition and circulate their posts will be held legally accountable,” which was then followed by a further series of tweets on Saturday claiming that countering such accounts is “a national duty” in order to “protect the security and safety of the nation.”

    The blacklisted accounts, stated the Ministry, are run by dissidents – or “fugitives” – in Iran, Qatar, Iraq and various European countries who have been have been “executing a systematic plan to tarnish the image of Bahrain and its people.”

    These recent tweets by the Bahraini government come amid a crackdown on political dissent by online voices and accounts in recent years, particularly following the Arab Spring protests in 2011 which were unsuccessful in the small Gulf Kingdom after its neighbouring ally Saudi Arabia sent troops to help crush protests.

    Hundreds of protesters and activists have been imprisoned, at times in mass trials, and even stripped of their nationality, with the main opposition parties in the country having been banned. Human rights groups have also accused Bahraini authorities of inflicting torture in detention.

    Furthermore, many opposition figures who did escape imprisonment have fled abroad since the protests, and it is these figures that have recently been targeted by the authorities through online means. The targeting has been part of a campaign since mid-May, which has sought to blacklist and take legal steps against dissenters running Twitter accounts from regional and European countries”

  3. Islamophobia decreases sharply in Liverpool thanks to Mo Salah (alaraby, Jun 3, 2019)
    https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/6/3/islamophobia-decreases-sharply-in-liverpool-thanks-to-mo-salah

    “A new study has found that hate crimes and Islamophobia have decreased significantly in the Liverpool area since Egyptian football star Mohammed Salah was signed by Liverpool FC.

    The study, by the Immigration Policy Lab, a thinktank which informs governments about migration issues, found that hate crimes had decreased by 18.9 percent in the county of Merseyside – of which Liverpool is the main city.

    The study also looked at 15 million tweets by Liverpool fans and found that the level of Islamophobic tweets by them had decreased by half, from 7.2 percent to 3.4 percent.

    The study concluded that these results had been influenced by an increasing familiarity with Islam and Muslims as a result of Mohammed Salah’s fame, calling this “positive exposure” and contrasting it with the negative image of Islam prevalent in British society at large.

    Mohammed Salah is not only a record-breaking goal-scorer, with 32 goals to his name in 38 games of the 2017-18 English Premier League, he is also one of the most visibly Muslim players in England, performing the Islamic sujood prostration to thank God whenever he scores a goal, an action which has been included in the FIFA 2019 video game.

    Liverpool FC’s manager, Jurgen Klopp said that Salah lives in a world “where people think ‘[Muslims] are all like this’ or ‘they are all like that’… it’s nice to have somebody around full of joy, full of love and to do what he is doing around his religion”. Salah’s fame has been as much to do with his winning personality as his footballing skills.

    Liverpool fans have been filmed singing pro-Islam chants ever since Mohammed Salah was signed. One of them went:

    Mohammed Salah,

    A gift from Allah..

    He’s always scoring,

    It’s almost boring,

    So please don’t take

    Mohammed Away.

    A video of fans singing

    If he’s good enough for you

    He’s good enough for me

    If he scores another few

    Then I’ll be Muslim too

    Sitting in a mosque…

    That’s where I wanna be

    also went viral last year.

    On the other hand, fans of rival clubs have expressed hatred of Salah in Islamophobic terms on Twitter, with one Southampton fan saying he’d like to force feed Salah bacon and another doctoring a photo to show him as a suicide bomber.

    On Saturday Mohammed Salah was celebrating with his family after Liverpool beat Tottenham Hotspur in the UEFA Champions’ League”

  4. Kremlin rebuffs Trump on Syria, says military action in Idlib is justified (reuters, Jun 3, 2019)
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-syria-kremlin/kremlin-rebuffs-trump-on-syria-says-military-action-in-idlib-is-justified-idUSKCN1T41AN

    “The Kremlin rebuffed criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump of Russian and Syrian government military action in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, saying on Monday it was needed to shut down rebel attacks being launched from there.

    Trump on Sunday urged Russian and Syrian government forces to stop bombing Idlib, following a Friday Kremlin statement that signaled Moscow would continue to back a month-long Syrian government offensive there.

    The assault has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis as Syrians displaced by the fighting seek shelter at the Turkish border. More than 200,000 people have fled since strikes began at the end of April, according to the United Nations.

    When asked about Trump’s criticism on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said militants were using Idlib as a base to launch attacks against civilian and military targets, something he called unacceptable.

    “Of course strikes by militants from Idlib are unacceptable and measures are being taken to neutralize these strike positions,” Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

    He said Turkey bore responsibility for ensuring such attacks from Idlib did not happen under a deal reached between Russia and Turkey in September.

    The Syrian offensive has strained that agreement which created a demilitarized zone in Idlib and called for it to be free of all heavy weapons and jihadist fighters.

    Turkey has called for a ceasefire in Idlib, the last significant rebel stronghold, to prevent more civilian deaths and a possible new surge of refugees fleeing the fighting.”

    • Right move.
      PT had to ask, but it’s time to blast the turko-jihadis out of Idlib. Hold the false flags, por favor.
      And do what’s overdue: stomp this Turk’s cloven hoofs at the G-20.

  5. “Trump attends royal state banquet hosted by Queen Elizabeth II”
    Global News – June 3, 2019

  6. Militant attack kills two police, two soldiers in Lebanon’s Tripoli (reuters, Jun 3, 2019)
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-security/militant-attack-kills-two-police-two-soldiers-in-lebanons-tripoli-idUSKCN1T42RJ

    “A militant attacked a security forces patrol in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli on Monday night, killing two police officers and two army soldiers, state news agency NNA said.

    Two security sources told Reuters the police and army had encircled the gunman in a building after he threw a bomb at security forces in a government building and fired at a patrol.

    One of the sources said that the attacker then blew himself up and that he had been in jail before on charges of belonging to Islamic State.

    The Lebanese military confirmed the attack and the death of a soldier, and said the attacker had also fired at the security forces’ center.

    Lebanese authorities say they have foiled numerous attacks in recent years, including some tied to the conflict across the border in Syria. From 2013 to 2016, militants struck parts of Lebanon repeatedly with bomb attacks, but officials have since said that security has improved.”

  7. HRW report on Sinai full of lies, fabrications : SIS (ahram, Jun 3, 2019)
    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/335683/Egypt/Politics-/HRW-report-on-Sinai-full-of-lies,-fabrications–SI.aspx

    “The State Information Service (SIS) stressed that Human Rights Watch (HRW)’s Report on Sinai is full of lies and fabrications on the situation in Sinai.

    In its official detaied response to the report, the SIS said the HRW once again circulates lies regarding the human rights situation in Egypt, a pattern the international organization is used to when it comes to human rights in Egypt.

    In September 2017, the HRW issued a report claiming there are 19 cases of torture in Egyptian prisons without providing any real evidence. The Egyptian prosecutor general, in turn, investigated those allegations and found that they were not true, SIS said.

    In 2018, the HRW issued a variety of unfounded statements and made a report on the human rights situation in Egypt, including a report on Khaled Hassan, a defendant being prosecuted for his affiliation with Daesh’s Wilayat Sina’a, it also said. They claimed he disappeared and was subjected to torture but later on all their claims were proved to be untrue, it added.

    In 2019, the HRW once again made a report on May 28 regarding the situation in northern Sinai, it said. The report contained false allegations and was based on unreliable sources, sources that are in constant enmity with the Egyptian State and are deliberately attempting to distort the image of Egypt, it added.

    It noted that the report included many alleged cases that are entirely unsupported by any real evidence as if this report is made to be read by amateurs.

    That’s why the Human Rights Unit of the State Information Service prepared this detailed comprehensive response to the report which refutes these allegations, SIS said.

    As for the interviews included in the HRW report, the report claimed that 54 interviews were conducted with local residents in Sinai without clarifying many essential points to show their authenticity, SIS added.

    It pointed out that the report said these interviews were conducted with Sinai locals either in Egypt or living abroad but it failed to uncover the identity of the interviewees “which makes us wonder why their identity was kept anonymous”.

    The report also did not refer to any interviews that were conducted with any Egyptian official or a government source in or out of Egypt, SIS said. “It did not show us the method by which they conducted the interviews either they were made through Skybe or social networking tools.””

  8. Pakistani military rebuts BBC report as ‘pack of lies’ (tribune, Jun 3, 2019)
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/1986422/1-pakistani-military-rebuts-bbc-report-pack-lies/

    “The Pakistani military has strongly rebutted a recent news report about alleged human rights violations in the erstwhile North Waziristan Agency as “a pack of lies and in violation of journalistic ethos”.

    In the June 2 report – titled ‘Uncovering Pakistan’s Secret Human Rights Abuses’ – the British broadcaster accused the Pakistani military of rights abuses during a military offensive, codenamed Zarb-e-Azb, in North Waziristan.

    The operation had decimated the command and control centre and bomb-making factories of terrorists and purged the region of militants of all hues, re-establishing the writ of the state in the area which was called by the West as the “most dangerous place on earth”.

    The BBC report is apparently premised on an ‘airstrike on January 22, 2014’ that had allegedly killed terrorist commander Adnan Rasheed in the Hamzoni area of Waziristan. However, it later transpired, according to the BBC, that the strike had allegedly killed the family of a local man who had his home blown to pieces.

    The military’s media wing – the ISPR – said in a statement on Monday that the BBC report, which is based on ‘conjecturing’, tried to “implicate Pakistan Army without any proof”.

    “The angling, spinning and credibility of the story are exposed from the fact that contrary to the published claim, the ISPR only received a judgmental questionnaire via email.

    The ISPR said the BBC was offered full opportunity – even interaction to know the facts. The BBC team, however, never responded and did a “preconceived, conjectured story”. “The story is void of the context and understanding of the prevalent environment at that time,” it added.

    Referring to the alleged airstrike, the ISPR said the North Waziristan operation had yet not started when the so-called incident allegedly took place. The military had announced the launch of Operation Zarb-e-Azb on June 15, 2014 in North Waziristan which was “being used by terrorists to plan, coordinate and execute activities across the country”.

    And ground troops moved into the area on June 30 after the local population had been shifted to the camps set up by the government for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

    “On an average 6-8 terrorist incidents per month were taking place across Pakistan targeting children, women, schools, churches and markets. People were being slaughtered in the North Waziristan and terrorists were playing football with [their] heads. Local population was actually hostage to hardcore terrorists,” the ISPR said.

    The BBC story, it added, lacks any credible and authentic source and merely relied on hearsay. The basis of the entire story about so-called strikes was unauthentic Jan 22, 2014 report of a private TV channel. The only source interviewed also didn’t point at anyone or talked about the strike or operation, it said.

    It said the issue mentioned in the report is of North Waziristan whereas the activist quoted as source belongs to a particular group from South Waziristan.

    “Besides not availing full opportunity offered by the ISPR, the BBC report ignored available official government stance on recent Kharkamar check post incident in North Waziristan,” it added.

    According to the ISPR, the writer surely lacked knowledge of the environment, geography of the area, the ground situation, and about conduct of operations.

    “The story remains ill intended, biased and part of a larger agenda. It also amounts to undermine Pakistan’s efforts for fighting global menace of terrorism and Pakistan’s unparalleled achievements in the war against terrorism contributing to regional peace.”

    It said the people of Pakistan are well aware of the fake news phenomenon of all types and design behind such undertakings. The issue is being formally taken up with BBC authorities.

    Before even filing the story and getting viewpoints from all stakeholders, the writer had titled his story ‘Pakistan Military guilty of human rights violations’ in his email sent to the ISPR. The ISPR had objected to this title and told him that the title was judgmental.

    The BBC based its story primarily on an alleged airstrike which the military has never claimed. The military has never taken credit of killing outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Adnan Rasheed let alone killing him in an airstrike.

    The writer of the article traveled all along to DI Khan district but never interacted with the ISPR to know facts.

    According to a source, the writer’s sources are activists of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) “working on vested interests and playing politics which has been denounced by the K-P Chief Minister chief minister who recently said only the provincial assembly is the true representative of the K-P people including tribal areas.

    “He said the number of casualties [in the so-called strike] was not known whereas the ISPR had frequently and regularly given figures of both terrorist casualties and also military and civilian casualties through press conferences, year ender, etc.,” he said.

    Interestingly, the BBC had recently agreed to pay damages to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko over a report making allegations of corruption. The report specifically claimed that a €350,000 payment was made to secure a meeting with US President Donald Trump. Now the BBC accepted that the claim ‘was untrue’.

    Timing of BBC fiasco is excellent for Poroshenko who filed the claim in last September, saying the allegation of ‘serious corruption’ had caused him ‘substantial distress and embarrassment’.”

  9. Thousands of Turkic migrants granted residence permits (hdn, Jun 3, 2019)
    http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/thousands-of-turkic-migrants-granted-residence-permits-143924

    “Turkey has granted 89,951 residence permits and 57,902 long-term residence permits to members of Turkic communities from Turkmenistan, Bulgaria, China, Greece, Iraq and Afghanistan, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu said at a fast-breaking dinner on June 2, referring to Uighurs from China, Iraqi Turkmens, Uzbeks, Turkmenistan nationals and minority Turks of Greece.

    “Our approach to granting citizenship is the same. You don’t need to worry. I want you to know that we will use every chance in favor of you to provide that you will reach tomorrow as citizens of the Republic of Turkey, brotherly and sisterly,” Soylu said.

    Members of Turkic communities were given access to health and social security services, and they were involved in the business life before they were naturalized in Turkey, he added.

    Ali Yerlikaya, governor of Istanbul, also addressed representatives of the Turkic communities living in Istanbul at the same event, saying that issuance process of a long-term residence permit could take as short as three months.

    The event at Avrasya Show and Arts Center in Istanbul’s Fatih district was organized by the Governorate of Istanbul and the provincial directorate of migration in Istanbul.”

  10. Turkish forces ‘neutralize’ 141 PKK terrorists in May (aa, Jun 3, 2019)
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/turkish-forces-neutralize-141-pkk-terrorists-in-may-/1496111

    “Turkish security forces “neutralized” a total of 141 PKK terrorists in May, the country’s deputy interior minister said on Monday.

    Authorities often use “neutralized” in statements to imply terrorists in question surrendered or were killed or captured.

    In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK — listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU — has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including many women and children.

    Speaking to reporters, Ismail Catakli said 3,645 people were captured for their suspected links to the terror organizations in May.

    Referring to the anti-drug operations, he said nearly 15,000 people were arrested and 1,577 were remanded in custody in the same month.

    He also said that the ministry initiated a legal procedure against 2,295 people as part of its fight against cyber crimes.

    Noting that over 3.6 million Syrians were recorded across Turkey, he said nearly 330,000 people turned to their homeland.

    Referring to irregular migrants, he said a total of 27,536 migrants and 561 human smugglers were arrested in May.

    Turkey has been the main route for irregular migrants trying to cross into Europe, especially since 2011 when the Syrian civil war began.”

  11. EU reported to Hague court over migrant deaths (ansa, Jun 3, 2019)
    http://www.ansa.it/english/news/2019/06/03/eu-reported-to-hague-court-over-migrant-deaths_56b0339b-406b-48d3-9691-ffc5de934cb7.html

    “The European Union and member States in the front line of the migrant crisis, Italy, Germany and France, have been reported to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague over the thousands of migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean, sources said Monday.

    The Guardian reported that former ICC staffer Juan Branco and Israeli lawyer Omer Shatz were the main authors of a 245-page complaint filed at the Dutch-based court.
    The EU and member States should be prosecuted for the deaths of thousands of migrants who drowned in the Mediterranean fleeing Libya, according to the detailed legal submission to the ICC.

    The 245-page document calls for punitive action over the EU’s deterrence-based migration policy after 2014, which allegedly “intended to sacrifice the lives of migrants in distress at sea, with the sole objective of dissuading others in similar situation from seeking safe haven in Europe”.

    The indictment is aimed at the EU and the member states that played a prominent role in the refugee crisis: Italy, Germany and France.

    The stark accusation, that officials and politicians knowingly created the “world’s deadliest migration route” resulting in more than 12,000 people losing their lives, is made by the two experienced international lawyers.

    Branco formerly worked at the ICC as well as at France’s foreign affairs ministry, and Shatz teaches at Sciences Po university in Paris.

    The allegation of “crimes against humanity” draws partially on internal papers from Frontex, the EU organisation charged with protecting the EU’s external borders, which, the lawyers say, warned that moving from the successful Italian rescue policy of Mare Nostrum could result in a “higher number of fatalities”.

    The submission states that: “In order to stem migration flows from Libya at all costs … and in lieu of operating safe rescue and disembarkation as the law commands, the EU is orchestrating a policy of forced transfer to concentration camps-like detention facilities [in Libya] where atrocious crimes are committed.” The switch from Mare Nostrum to a new policy from 2014, known as Triton (named after the Greek messenger god of the sea), is identified as a crucial moment “establishing undisputed mens rea [mental intention] for the alleged offences”.

    It is claimed that the evidence in the dossier establishes criminal liability within the jurisdiction of the ICC for “causing the death of thousands of human beings per year, the refoulement [forcible return] of tens of thousands of migrants attempting to flee Libya and the subsequent commission of murder, deportation, imprisonment, enslavement, torture, rape, persecution and other inhuman acts against them”.

    The Triton policy introduced the “most lethal and organised attack against civilian population the ICC had jurisdiction over in its entire history,” the legal document asserts. “European Union and Member States’ officials had foreknowledge and full awareness of the lethal consequences of their conduct.” The submission does not single out individual politicians or officials for specific responsibility but does quote diplomatic cables and comments from national leaders, including Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron.

    The office of the prosecutor at the ICC is already investigating crimes in Libya but the main focus has been on the Libyan civil war, which erupted in 2011 and led to the removal of Muammar Gaddafi. Fatou Bensouda, the ICC prosecutor, has, however, already mentioned inquiries into “alleged crimes against migrants transiting through Libya”.

    The Mare Nostrum search and rescue policy launched in October 2013, the submission says, was “in many ways hugely successful, rescuing 150,810 migrants over a 364-day period”.

    Criticism of the policy began in mid-2014 on the grounds, it is said, that it was not having a sufficient humanitarian impact and that there was a desire to move from assistance at sea to assistance on land.

    “EU officials sought to end Mare Nostrum to allegedly reduce the number of crossings and deaths,” the lawyers maintain. “However, these reasons should not be considered valid as the crossings were not reduced. And the death toll was 30-fold higher.” The subsequent policy, Triton, only covered an “area up to 30 nautical miles from the Italian coastline of Lampedusa, leaving around 40 nautical miles of key distress area off the coast of Libya uncovered,” the submission states. It also deployed fewer vessels.

    It is alleged EU officials “did not shy away from acknowledging that Triton was an inadequate replacement for Mare Nostrum”. An internal Frontex report from 28 August 2014, quoted by the lawyers, acknowledged that “the withdrawal of naval assets from the area, if not properly planned and announced well in advance – would likely result in a higher number of fatalities.” The first mass drownings cited came on 22 January and 8 February 2015, which resulted in 365 deaths nearer to the Libyan coast. It is alleged that in one case, 29 of the deaths occurred from hypothermia during the 12-hour-long transport back to the Italian island of Lampedusa. During the “black week” of 12 to 18 April 2015, the submission says, two successive shipwrecks led to the deaths of 1,200 migrants.

    As well as drownings, the forced return of an estimated 40,000 refugees allegedly left them at risk of “executions, torture and other systematic rights abuses” in militia-controlled camps in Libya.

    “European Union officials were fully aware of the treatment of the migrants by the Libyan Coastguard and the fact that migrants would be taken … to an unsafe port in Libya, where they would face immediate detention in the detention centers, a form of unlawful imprisonment in which murder, sexual assault, torture and other crimes were known by the European Union agents and officials to be common,” the submission states.

    Overall, EU migration policies caused the deaths of “thousands civilians per year in the past five years and produced about 40,000 victims of crimes within the jurisdiction of the court in the past three years”, the report states.

    The submission will be handed in to the ICC on Monday 3 June.

    An EU spokesperson said the union could not comment on “non-existing” legal actions but added: “Our priority has always been and will continue to be protecting lives and ensuring humane and dignified treatment of everyone throughout the migratory routes. It’s a task where no single actor can ensure decisive change alone.

    “All our action is based on international and European law.

    The European Union dialogue with Libyan authorities focuses on the respect for human rights of migrants and refugees, on promoting the work of UNHCR and IOM on the ground, and on pushing for the development of alternatives to detention, such as the setting up of safe spaces, to end the systematic and arbitrary detention system of migrants and refugees in Libya.

    “Search and Rescue operations in the Mediterranean need to follow international law, and responsibility depends on where they take place. EU operations cannot enter Libya waters, they operate in international waters. SAR operations in Libyan territorial waters are Libyan responsibility.” The spokesperson added that the EU has “pushed Libyan authorities to put in place mechanisms improving the treatment of the migrants rescued by the Libyan Coast Guard.””

    • Who is responsible for people putting to sea in an unseaworthy boat?The commies are pissed that their taxi service has been stopped.

  12. Tens of thousands of migrants pass through Saudi Arabia (ansamed, Jun 3, 2019)
    http://www.ansamed.info/ansamed/en/news/sections/generalnews/2019/06/03/tens-of-thousands-of-migrants-pass-through-saudi-arabia_7b266a74-e6ed-40a8-8248-e98d122c956a.html

    “Saudi Arabia is among the corridors used by migrants headed to Europe via the Mediterranean, according to a report released Monday by authorities in Riyadh, who have documented a constant flow of migrants from Ethiopia and Yemen into the Arab peninsula.

    According to data from the last 12 months reported by the government news agency SPA, of the approximately 55,000 people arrested in an attempt to illegally enter Saudi Arabia, 49% were Yemeni and 48% were Ethiopian.

    Despite the war in Yemen, tens of thousands of migrants from the Horn of Africa have crossed the sea to reach the troubled Arab country, and from there attempted to pass into Saudi Arabia, SPA said.

    Riyadh leads a coalition that conducts daily airstrikes on the central and northern areas of Yemen controlled by Houthi rebels.

    According to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), each month about 20,000 mainly Ethiopian migrants headed for Saudi Arabia cross the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait from the Horn of Africa to Yemen.

    The migrant flow also goes the other way, according to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), which said about 40,000 Yemenis fled to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa in 2015.

    From there, many Yemenis reached the United States through family reunification.

    In both directions, the journey by sea remains dangerous.

    There is frequent news of dozens of dead and missing after drowning on trafficker boats between the Horn of Africa and Yemen.

    Each migrant pays hundreds of dollars each for the crossing.(ANSAmed).”

  13. the intercept – AMAZON OFFERED JOB TO PENTAGON OFFICIAL INVOLVED WITH $10 BILLION CONTRACT IT SOUGHT

    IN A FEDERAL lawsuit, the tech giant Oracle has provided new details to support its accusation that Amazon secretly negotiated a job offer with a then-Department of Defense official who helped shape the procurement process for a massive federal contract for which Amazon was a key bidder.

    Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are now the two finalists to win the highly contested $10 billion contract for what is known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. The deal, one of the largest federal contracts in U.S. history, would pay one company to provide cloud computing services in support of Defense Department operations around the world.

    But the contract has been hotly contested since the department began soliciting proposals last year. Two of Amazon’s competitors, IBM and Oracle, filed complaints with the Government Accountability Office saying that the winner-take-all process unfairly favored Amazon, which is seen as an industry leader in cloud computing. When its claim was rejected, Oracle sued the government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

    Since the court battle began in 2018, Oracle has aggressively lodged conflict-of-interest accusations involving a former DOD official named Deap Ubhi, who left the department in 2017 to take a job at Amazon. In a court motion filed on Friday, Oracle alleged that while Ubhi worked on the preliminary research for the JEDI program in the late summer and fall of 2017, he was also engaged in a secret job negotiation with Amazon for months, complete with salary discussions, offers of signing bonuses, and lucrative stock options.

    The motion further alleges that Ubhi did not recuse himself from the JEDI program until weeks after verbally accepting a job offer from Amazon and that he continued to receive information about Amazon’s competitors and participate in meetings about technical requirements, despite a government regulation that forbids such conflicts of interest.

    “Neither Ubhi nor [Amazon Web Services] disclosed the employment discussions or job offer to DOD — not when the employment discussions started, not when the informal job offer occurred, not when the formal offer occurred, and not even when Ubhi accepted the offer,” Oracle’s motion reads.

    As America’s technology companies have continued to outpace the Pentagon, the Defense Department has looked to recruit talent from Silicon Valley to help enhance its information technology.

    Ubhi is a venture capitalist and technology entrepreneur who worked for Amazon before his time in government. He took a job working on a Defense Department initiative aimed at collaborating with Silicon Valley to modernize the Pentagon’s information technology systems. After working as part of a four-person team to help shape the Pentagon JEDI procurement process, he left the department and returned to Amazon in November 2017.

    A spokesperson for Amazon Web Services declined to comment and declined to make Ubhi available for an interview, citing ongoing litigation. Elissa Smith, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, also told The Intercept that “we don’t comment on pending litigation.”

    In a previous court filing, U.S. government lawyers accused Oracle of a “broad fishing expedition primarily [intended] to find support for its claim that the solicitation at issue is tainted by alleged conflicts of interest.”

    According to Oracle’s motion on Friday, Ubhi began job negotiations with Amazon in August 2017, while he was working on the early stages of the JEDI program. Oracle claims says that “deep discussions” about employment began in late September and that Ubhi “verbally committed” to take the job on October 4. But according to the filing, Ubhi did not recuse himself until October 31, 2017. Oracle alleges that he continued to influence the program in the meantime.

    Under the Procurement Integrity Act, government officials who are “contacted by a [contract] bidder about non-federal employment” have two options: They must either report the contact and reject the offer of employment or promptly recuse themselves from any contract proceedings.

    “Contracts should be awarded fairly based on merit,” Mandy Smithberger, director of the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, told The Intercept. “The Procurement Integrity Act seeks to ensure that job offers and other financial conflicts of interest don’t influence that process.”

    Last year, a Defense Department review found that “there were four instances where [department] individuals with potential financial conflicts of interest” had worked on the JEDI program, according to court records, but the Pentagon concluded that this hadn’t unfairly impacted the contracting process. Two follow-up reviews — one by the GAO in November 2018 and another by the Defense Department in April 2019 — came to similar conclusions.

    The second Pentagon review came after the department said that it had received “new information” about Ubhi and would investigate it. According to Oracle’s motion on Friday, the “new information” came from a “belated submission from [Amazon]” to the DOD’s contracting officer that finally acknowledged the monthslong employment talks.

    According to Oracle, Ubhi provided a “false narrative” to the contracting officer at the time of his recusal, saying that he was stepping away from the project because Amazon had offered to acquire a company that Ubhi had a stake in. That was a pretext to mask the fact he had been negotiating for months to obtain a job at the company, Oracle’s filing said.

    The filing also alleges that between Ubhi’s verbal commitment to accept Amazon’s offer and his recusal from JEDI, he continued to participate in Pentagon meetings about the project’s technical requirements and to receive submissions from Amazon competitors. It also alleges that Ubhi downloaded material from a JEDI project Google Drive to his own laptop.

    In its filings, Oracle has argued that Ubhi was instrumental in persuading the Pentagon to seek services from a single vendor — a decision widely seen to improve Amazon’s chances. Oracle cites workplace messages on the platform Slack in which Ubhi tries to persuade his colleagues to come around to that view, but the company does not cite any messages suggesting what his reasons or motive may have been.

    Lawyers for the U.S. have countered that Ubhi’s involvement was early in the process, before the agency had even put out its draft solicitations. The deputy director of the GAO has also testified that Ubhi’s role at DOD was to “take the lead on a market research report” and that characterizing him as the lead on the acquisition process is inaccurate.

    Public affairs officers for Amazon Web Services have also said in the past that Ubhi works with the commercial division of the company, not the public sector division, therefore minimizing his contact with the part of the company perusing the contract.

    https://theintercept.com/2019/06/03/amazon-defense-department-jedi-contract/

    • the daily caller –ORACLE ACCUSES AMAZON OF COURTING FORMER EMPLOYEE INVOLVED IN A $10 BILLION DOD PROGRAM

      Amazon made a highly lucrative job offer to a former employee while the man was leading a $10 billion winner-take-all cloud computing contract with the government, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

      Computing giant Oracle alleged in the May 31 complaint that former Department of Defense official Deap Ubhi was offered shares in Amazon and a salary with the big tech giant while he was finding a company to help build out the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract.

      “AWS (during JEDI and with full knowledge made a hidden job offer to Ubhi, to include a massive [redacted] immediate signing bonus payment, a second [redacted] bonus payment after year one, (redacted) shares of Amazon stock (roughly $950-$960 per share in the relevant period), and a (redacted) salary,” the court document notes, referring to Amazon Web Services, one of the companies vying for the contract.

      The document added: “AWS offered a former Amazon employee actively running DoD’s $10 billion JEDI procurement nearly (redacted) dollars in cash and stock during a live procurement, not to mention a substantial salary.”

      Ubhi never recused himself, according to the document. Instead, “he spent weeks as a DoD official, downloading the JEDI Google drive to his laptop, meeting with AWS competitors as a DoD official, requesting and participating cloud meetings … and obtaining submissions from JEDI competitors,” Oracle notes in its document.

      The filing comes several months after Oracle file a similar lawsuit in December 2018 noting Ubhi’s past employment with Amazon, which stands to be one of two potential winners of JEDI, a cloud computing infrastructure for the U.S. military. Oracle’s lawsuit is an attempt to block the contract until further investigation.

      Ubhi openly praised Amazon on Twitter while he was working with the DOD, media reports show. “Once an Amazonian, always an Amazonian. Proud today. Thank you, @JeffBezos,” Ubhi tweeted in January 2017, referencing Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s opposition to President Donald Trump’s border wall.

      The former DOD official left the government in late 2017. He now works with AWS.

      Oracle and IBM have tried to overturn the single-award approach even. They argue that such a contract would force the Pentagon to pay billions of dollars to one company, while losing out on innovations from other companies down the supply chain. Conservatives have made similar arguments in the past.

      “A contract of this magnitude should not be awarded as a sole source contract,” conservative groups wrote in a May 16 letter to Russell Vought, the acting director for the Office of Management and Budget. Citizens Against Government Waste and The American Conservative Union were among several groups that signed the letter.

      It has become controversial among Republican lawmakers as well.

      Reps. Steve Womack of Arkansas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma, for instance, requested a probe in October 2018 into the Pentagon’s handling of the deal. This came after TheDCNF reported that an adviser to former Secretary of Defense James Mattis once consulted for Amazon Web Services through her firm.

      Both Amazon and DOJ refused to provide a comment to TheDCNF, citing ongoing litigation.

      https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/03/amazon-department-of-defense/

  14. Dershowitz reacts to new details casting doubt on Mueller report

    Reaction from Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz and President Trump’s former attorney John Dowd on ‘Hannity.

    • That would be mozlems then,judging by the way that they treat them,this paki has delusions of grandeur ,pretending to be some kind of “world leader”when in fact he is only mayor of London,and piss poor at the job,he stopped stop and search because we did not have enough violent murder ,after all it is a vibrant city filled with such peaceful people,who is doing all the killing?

  15. What’s next on the horizon of Satan’s smorgasbord?

    Deviled Eggs?
    Hot Cakes?
    I can has cheeseburgers?